


Tome of the Quirkless

by dgj212



Category: Fantasy - Fandom, SCP Foundation, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Modern Era, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27614966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgj212/pseuds/dgj212
Summary: On the day he meets All Might, Izuku is forced to buy a certain Green Book with blank, damp, pages. After reading a certain phrase from the blank book and falling asleep, Izuku wakes up in an unfamiliar place....Will Crosspost on RoyalRoad and FF.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Saw a vid on this and just got the idea, lost sleep over this. Not a proper crossover, just an interesting idea I had to get out of my head a soon as possible. 
> 
> I don’t own MHA/BNHA or SCP Foundation and related content

“So you're the one!” An older woman accused.

“...Huh?” Izuku let out in confusion when he realised the older woman was speaking to him.

After he collected his tossed notebooks from the school’s koi pond, he started walking home. He was down in his spirits and wanted a pick-me-up. The only thing close by was a bookstore, it wasn’t much but every store had some All Might Merchandise. 

He walked in and began to browse a few illustrated All Might Bibliographical novels. He was there for maybe five minutes before the older woman had spoken to him.

She was taller than Izuku, wider too, wore a garish dress that did little to hide her figure, wore a white apron for some reason, and has long red hair rolled up into a cone above her head.

He looked at her with a confused look.

She hefted up a green hardcover book without a label. He could tell that it was damp, like it took a dip in water before being left to dry.

Again he gave her a confused look, unsure of what the women meant. 

She pointed at his book bag. 

He tried to look but he couldn’t, so he felt behind him and could feel that water was leaking out from the bottom. 

  
It dawned at him that he didn’t bother shaking the notebooks dry, he had just stuffed them into his book bag, and now they were leaking. And the woman came to the conclusion that he had wet the book in her hands. 

“Um, I-I just got in here, I-I d-didn’t-” Izuku began but the woman wasn’t having it.

“You damage it, young man, you buy it!”

  
  


* * *

Izuku didn’t have room to argue. He was forced to buy the damp book.

The woman and the other store clerk smirked the entire time he paid for it. It had no price, so the woman pulled out a random number that he just happened to have on hand.

A quirk, he realized. That was too close of a coincidence, not to mention they instantly decided that he was the one who did the damage when the book has clearly been drying for a while.

And the book itself.

“Empty,” he noted. 

Every single page was blank. 

It was damp, but blank. 

Izuku sighed as he closed the book.

He was taken advantage. The woman clearly wanted to get rid of the book and she chose him as the unwilling buyer.

  
“That was all my allowance for this week too,” he had been saving up for something that would catch his eyes.

He kept mulling as he walked underneath a bridge and into a tunnel…

  
  


* * *

“I’m sorry, but I would have to say no,” All Might said.

He was a lot skinnier than how he was normally portrayed in public media, skeletal even. His bangs weren't sticking up like ears, his eyes dark and bleak, and his large clothes now hung on him a couple sizes too big.

Izuku was attacked by some vicious villain with a malleable body and All Might saved him. _The_ All Might, Japan’s number one hero and arguably the best one in the world too. He had given Izuku a signature and proceeded to jump away. Or tried to, but Izuku clung to him.

Then Izuku discovered All Might’s secret, he was injured and would “shrink” down when he’s not flexing. Leading up to that revelation, he had asked All Might if someone like himself could be a hero. Someone quirkless.

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming young man, but you also have to be realistic,” All Might said before leaving Izuku alone on the roof of the building.

Izuku was frozen in place.

His dreams were broken by the one person he looked up to, the person he aspired to be one day in spite of being quirkless.

He wasn't mean about it. He clearly had Izuku's best interest in mind and even offered ways Izuku could help. 

But that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. 

He stood there and cried.  
  


* * *

Night had come, and Izuku had returned home with a gloomy air about him.

His mother took notice, but decided to give him some space.

After dinner, Izuku secluded himself to his room.

He...wasn't having pleasant thoughts.

He was currently looking over his new addition to his collection of hero signatures and his new blank book. Despite the green book being damp, he could still write and draw on the pages.

He tried drawing heroes and analyzing them to take his mind off everything. When that didn't work, he tried copying his old entries from his latest hero notes. The ones from the burnt and soggy notebook that somehow managed to hold All Might's signature on it.

At first he tried to improve his sketches, drawing from clouded memories to improve small details. He gave up after it made him frustrated. Izuku changed his approach and began to just quickly etch the drawings on with no regard for accuracy and scribbled notes he felt were worth mentioning. His drawings started to become more like stick figures with circular shapes accompanied by single sentence descriptions he deemed good enough.

He stopped eventually because it didn’t work. It didn’t take his mind off anything.

"What's the point," he asked himself, tears dripping onto the book. He closed the book and tried to control his tears. "Is there...a point to living?" He couldn't help but ask outloud.

He sat by his desk, sad and dejected. 

He sighed...he grabbed his pencil, eager to distract himself.

He opened the book again...to find a single phrase written on the page:

**A HERO IS BORN**

Stunned, Izuku couldn't help but read that phrase over and over again. The thing is...Izuku was sure he drew on that page!

He checked the other pages and found that his drawings were gone!

He turned page after page, looking for his rushed work, but instead he found nothing but the phrase. All his work gone and replaced! He kept turning page after page until, eventually, he came across a page with a single word written on it.

**SLEEP**

Mystified and his mind feeling numb from fatigue, Izuku stood up, pealed his uniform off, and crawled into bed.

It did not take long for sleep to claim him.

  
  
  
  


* * *

Izuku's eyes flutter open to the tune of birds singing while staring up at an unusual sight.

_Blue sky_ , he realized.

There was no ceiling over his head, or covers wrapping him.

He woke up on a bed of straws next to a burnt out campfire.

"H-hello?" He couldn't help but call out.

No answer.

He gathered more of his surroundings as he stood up.

He was in a sparsely populated woods, his campfire(at least he assumes it’s his) is next to a small pond that is fed by a small river that continues downstream somewhere. 

Confused and thirsty, he walked over to the pond, that’s when he caught his own wavy appearance.

Izuku looked himself over. It was definitely him, but his clothes….

_These...these aren’t mine,_ he thought to himself. 

He wore a pristine white dress shirt under a green, padded, double breasted notch vest with bronze buttons. In addition, he wore blue jeans tied with a brown leather belt, red shoes with white soles and black laces, and wore grey gloves riddled with thick seams that never felt uncomfortable. Curiously he loosened his belt and looked beneath his pants, he was wearing comfortable undergarments.

He...was not repulsed by the clothes. They were modern but clearly took on a medieval aesthetic. It looked nice on him, but it was definitely not in his wardrobe.

He tightened his belt and was in the process of taking his gloves off in order to fish some water to drink when something caught his eye.

Floating on the pond were fish. Lots of fish with weird discolouration. They were all motionless as they gently floated down the stream. 

Izuku put the gloves back on and backed away from the water. 

He looked around and spotted next to the bed of straws two items. 

One appeared to be a leather sling satchel and a leather water container (a canteen maybe? Or a water drum?) with decorations similar to peppermint candy, only instead of red and white it’s brown and grey. 

He picked up the canteen and gave it a few experimental shakes. He felt a wave of relief surge through him when he began to hear and feel the liquid slosh around the container. 

He opened it and greedily drank...then coughed.

It wasn’t water, it was something fruity and had a hint of alcohol, he remembers it from when Bakugo tricked him into drinking his mother’s “grown up juice”. It wasn’t bad, per se, just surprising.

“Ale?” Izuku wondered aloud. 

He looked at the container, then back at the pond with more discoloured fish floating down, then back at the container.

  
With a sigh he drank the liquid in the container, feeling a rush run through his body that made him shiver uncomfortably.

He closed the lid.

He wondered what to do with it before he realized that he could attach it to his belt.

His stomach rumbled a little so he decided to search his sling satchel, at least he assumed it was his, given where he woke up. As he picked it up, he noticed that close to it, right by the bed of hay, was a knife in a leather scabbard. 

He swung the sling satchel over his shoulder, used the buckler on the strap to tighten it in place, and bent down to pick up the knife.

The scabbard’s leather design has long straps.

Izuku quickly rationalized that he could tie it on to his belt and quickly did so. After he was done, he drew the blade.

The handle was made of wood with two metal rivets along the centre of the handle, it also had a short bronze coloured guard. The blade itself was fixed with one side having a sharp edge that curved as it got closer to the tip. The metal for the blade seemed to be of a lesser quality, at least when compared to the clean and reflective looking kitchen knife his mother owns. The metal was gritty, worn, and repeatedly sharpened. 

Izuku swallowed a lump, it was his first time holding something like this that wasn’t a kitchen knife.

He gave a few experimental swings with it. 

He slashed the air in a variety of ways and even stabbed at the empty space. After a while he began moving and slashing. He laughed a little before he realized what he was doing.

Izuku blushed and stopped when he realized he was playing with around with a sharp knife.

He sighed dejectedly and began to sheathe it.

“Just,” he began after stowing the knife, “where am I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note
> 
> I’ve always wanted to tackle fantasy with MHA but I didn’t know if I wanted to commit to it. So I figured I could do a VR fic and got a quarter of the way through before i gave up due to the numbers (lit RPG fiction standard). Then I read this and suddenly I knew what to write. 
> 
> For the Uninformed. The book is SCP 1230, not a proper crossover just using the anomalous item. Though I did have ideas of Izuku using this and SCP 1609 (after he shapes it with very tough glue).


	2. Bags and Key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm liking that I can read my work on a mobile on this site and be able to make quick changes on the go. That said, I like how FF makes searching for things faster since there isn't a ton of tags.
> 
> I don't own MHA/BnHA or The SCP Foundation and related sites.

“...It’s been a while and there’s no bad reaction,” Izuku observed. He was still a bit apprehensive, but he mustered a bit of courage and licked the mashed up berry off of the back of his hand.

His face scrunched up, his lips puckering.

“Sour.”

His satchel had nothing in the way of food and he found a bush of weird berries nearby. They were...triangular. The berries grew with straight edges and no seeds. Or maybe it hadn’t grown the seeds yet...

They were fleshy enough, as fruits can be, and seeing no alternative, he figured it might be worth a try.

He was clothed, good quality too, given something to drink, a possible weapon, and he woke up on a random bed of hay with no other hay nearby. 

However he got there, someone clearly took measures to make sure he had the basic stuff. He hoped that also meant he was in a place where he could gather something to eat. 

His satchel only contained a spare shirt and undergarments, what he assumes is a whet stone, and a small bag of metal pieces that he suspects is money.

But no food.

He sucked it up and began to eat the sour triangular berries, his face scrunching with each bite.

He walked passed the bush and into the woods with everything he found on hand as he ate the berries.

_ I woke up next to a campfire, had something to drink, edible food nearby in the form of bushes with berries, so maybe…. _

_ …! _

“Yep, here it is,” Izuku said as he stared at a dirt road that has clearly been used a lot. He looked behind him, he could faintly see the small river feeding into the pond nearby and continuing down stream.

_ Up river or down river, huh? _ Izuku thought to himself.

Then he put the rest of the berries into his mouth in order to shock himself.

_ Why am I not panicking right now?  _ Izuku asked himself as he tortured himself with sourness.

Regardless of whether he had a brave nature or not, and he knew well enough that it was the later, he was sure anyone would wake up confused and panicking in his situation. Yet he was calm when he woke up and was able to take in his surroundings carefully and make the best informed decision he could.

“A mystery for later,” Izuku muttered. For now he needed to find...someone, anyone who could help him figure out what is happening. So he needed to move. 

_ Up river, _ Izuku decided.

_ Whatever happened to those fish came from upstream,  _ he rationalised,  _ if I go down stream and get thirsty before I find a town or something to replace my fluids, it’ll be an unpleasant trip. This way I might move past whatever is affecting the water or maybe even remove it.  _

He thought about going down stream briefly and maybe warn people not to drink the water, but the water was moving faster and the fish were good enough warning anyway.

So Izuku began to walk the dirt road, following the river upstream.

  
  
  
  


“I mean, I knew it was bad, but I didn’t think it was this bad,” Izuku muttered to himself as he patted his pants for a phone he didn’t have for the uptienth time. 

The walk so far has been uneventful, nothing has shown itself to be visibly affecting the nearby river, and not having his phone was starting to get to him.

However, as he continued walking, he began to hear sounds.

There was animalistic yet eldritch growl and howl as well thunderous boom of windchime.

_ Clashing! _ He realized.

The chimes roared in a rhythm along with the former sound, beat by beat. 

Izuku stood there frozen, for a moment. Unsure of what to do.

He was about to turn around when a pained cry caught his attention. That was quickly followed by an eldritch roar that was somehow unmistakably a pained animal cry.

Izuku gritted his teeth.

Against his better judgement, he ran towards the sound.

It didn’t take long for him to see person clad in white with an yellow cape, red long hair, and a bird mask-

“Bird-I!” Izuku said in surprise as he rushed behind a thick enough tree.

It was the local hero Bird-I! What's more, he was wielding a glowing sword, something long and narrow, against...against the villain that attacked Izuku only...darker.

Where the villain had a viscous green body capable of fitting inside something like a soda bottle, the thing Bird-I fought was purple with green veins and resembled a wolf’s head with antlers on four long thin legs. Around the creature were short tendrils that lashed out at the hero.

**TI**

**RI** **  
  
**

**RING~**

Blocking, parrying, slicing, stabbing, each movement of the blade produced a different note on contact as the hero fought the malicious eldritch beast!

The beast let out an eldritch howl and snarl before barking and mewling as it snapped it’s jaws at the hero. But the hero avoided it while parrying the tendrils with expert swings of his sword.

The sword exploded with radiant light whenever it made contact with the beast. The light blinded and sung as the beast's mass receded before aggressively reforming. 

_ No, the sword moving doesn’t create the sound, it’s when it makes contact! It’s more of a shield than a sword!  _ Izuku realized as he watched the hero swing his sword in order to make contact with the monster in defense rather than offense. That wasn't the only realization he made. 

Bird-I was getting slower, and for whatever reason, he was favoring his left leg over his right. Not only that, while the monster was physically repelled by sword’s light, it was clear the monster’s attacks still had weight behind them. With each contact, Bird-I was enduring the blows that ran from his sword to his body. Eventually, the monster is going to overpower the hero.

Izuku drew his knife.

He looked at it, then at the hero’s sword, then at the monster, then back at his knife.

_ WHAT CAN I DO WITH THIS?  _ He questioned himself in a panic. There was no way he was getting close to that monster, if he did he was sure to get severely injured if not worse!

"Gah!" Izuku quickly turned to see that a tentacle had finally embedded itself into the hero.

The hero quickly jumped back using his left foot and pressed the edge of his sword on his wound, said sword glowing and singing in the process. Likely someway to cauterize the wound. Still, that gave the monster the opportunity to attack.

Izuku did the only thing he could think of. He chucked the knife at the monster.

The knives spun as it traveled. It did an an arc before the handle hit the monster in the face, doing nothing, and then hitting the ground.

The wolf head turned to look at him, making eye contact with Izuku.

Izuku is now frozen in terror.

A sword stabs the monster’s chest, said monster letting out a surprised yelp before it’s body vaporized into dark purple mist that quickly vanished.

A moment of distraction had given the hero the opportunity he needed to vanquish the monster.

"I really hate chimera types. They have too many false cores and protect each one just as rabidly." Izuku heard the hero grumble as he stowed away his sword into the scabbard at his hip. He stood tall before hitting the ground and grabbing the stab wound at his abdomen. 

Izuku quickly rushed to the hero.

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT BIRD-I?"

"Oh-heard of me, have ya," the hero grunted as he tried to stand. 

Izuku helped him up, but realized that he wasn’t strong enough. So instead, he helped Bird-I to the tree. The hero was once more on the ground, but his back is on the tree. 

_ It didn’t cauterise the wound, _ Izuku noted as the hero bled,  _ then why did he-? _

“Heck of a morning, eh kid?” The hero said before coughing up blood

“AH! B-blood!” 

“Breakfast of champions,” the hero grunted while wiping the blood away from his lips. He flashed Izuku pained smile that showed off his bloody pearly whites. “More common than you’d think. Sometimes it needs a little help staying down.”

Izuku didn’t know if the hero was joking or delirious, but he was scrambling his mind for anything he could do.

He swung his satchel to the front and began to open it.

“We need to stop the bleeding,” he said as he pulled out his spare shirt.

“Stop,” The hero said, “use the cape. It’s made of rare silk, it’s hypoallergenic and antibacterial.”

Izuku paused, and then shoved his shirt back into the satchel. He managed to liberate the hero’s cape with a bit of effort, and discomfort on the hero’s part.

He then proceeded to pull the fabric apart in an attempt to rip it. Just like he had seen in the movies.

He gritted his teeth and pulled, exerting himself to split apart the fabric that proved to be very tough, the thing stretching but not breaking.

The hero, just sitting with a calmer breath, stared at Izuku. He wore a look of befuddlement, even though he wore a bird mask that covered his eyes, surprised to see Izuku struggling so much. 

“...Kid,” the hero said, interrupting Izuku’s efforts. ”Your hunting knife is right there,” the hero nodded at the small knife. 

...Izuku felt like slapping himself. The knife! He could have used it to cut the fabric! No wonder the hero gave him a strange look.

Izuku blushed and reached for the knife.

The fabric was still tough to cut even with a knife, but Izuku managed to cut the cape into long thin strips with a lot of effort. It helped that the cape’s design seemed like it wanted to be cut. Maybe it had this in mind when it was made?

He moved to bandage the wound, but Bird-I stopped him.

“Have you done this before?” Bird-I asked. “Dress a wound?” he clarified.

Izuku shook his head.

“Well that’s great,” the hero said sarcastically, nearly laughing, “all right, I’ll walk you through this.”

  
  
  
  


“Cripes, I’m not doing that again,” the hero said with his cape wrapped around his abdomen. 

“We need to get you to a doctor,” Izuku said.

The hero looked at Izuku, then turned his head to look up the road, presumably the way the hero came.

Izuku turned to look as well, but he didn’t seen anything but trees and dirt road. He turned to look back at Bird-I. Bird-I was grimacing as he looked up the road.

“I’m staying,” the hero declared.

“Bu-” Whatever protest he was about to say died when the hero spoke up.

“ _ I’m staying, _ ” the hero hissed. He turned to look at the direction Izuku came from. He nodded to himself. “There’s a village that way. I need you to go down there with this,” the hero pulled out a weird key from his pouch. “Find a government representative in the village down there. Hopefully there’s another Titled around.”

“T-titled?” Izuku question. 

  
“Yeah,” The hero said. “Besides, you don’t want to go that way, the Consumed is coming from there.”

“The Consumed?”

“Yeah, curs-ed things weren’t supposed to show up until another decade. Now they’re coming out of the woodworks like locusts, consuming everything. Hopefully other Titled have already sprung into action.”

“Oh, is that what caused all those dead fish?” Izuku wondered out loud.

The Hero paused.

“...What did you say?” The hero said coldly.

“Um, f-fish,” Izuku reiterated with a stutter at the hero’s tone, “earlier I-I saw a lot of dead fish floating down the river.”

“...”

The hero was silent.

Then he looked back at the road Izuku came. He kept staring, even craning his neck forward a little. As he stared, Izuku couldn’t help but peer at the mask. He could make out faint purple orbs.

Bird-I grimaced.

“Cleaver finks,” the hero spat, drawing Izuku’s attention. “New plan, your skipping the village entirely and heading up the mountain.” he pointed in direction Izuku had come to call west since it was to his left when he was walking. He didn’t know if it actually was. 

“Huh? Wha-but, w-we need to get you-”

  
“I’m staying, end of discussion, but I need you to take this key. This is really important. All our lives depends on it,” the hero said forcing the key into Izuku’s hands.

“B-bu-” Izuku tried to argue with the hero. Suddenly given an object being told lives depended on it? Who wouldn't freak out!?

“Last I heard there’s a mine up there that connects to a port city on the other side of the mountain. You can take the miner’s route down to get to get there quick, you should be able to find another Titled. Get this key to them, tell them it has to go to the Z’Myra’s Temple.”

“Wh-why can’t you go!” Izuku blurted.

“Kid, I got a hole on my side and my right foot is twisted, been twisted all night. I’ve also been at this a for a few days now with barely any rest. I honestly don’t think I can make it.” The tired hero lifted mask, just enough to show Izuku his tired weary eyes with layers of bags underneath. 

“I’m not asking you kid. I’m begging you,” Bird-I said before lowering his mask, “take that key in my stead, make sure it gets to Z’Myra’s Temple.”

He should say no. He was weak. He was in no way qualified to do this. He didn’t even know where he was or how he got there! But in the light of Bird-I’s sincerity, Izuku couldn’t find it in himself to say no.

“I-I’ll do it,” Izuku said. He could feel himself tremble when he said those words, but he meant them.

“Thank you,” Bird-I said graciously. He attempted to stand up and Izuku helped him to his feet.

“Here,” he began as he undid something from his belt. “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this.”

Bird-I handed Izuku a couple of his pouches.

“Ahh….” Izuku drawled out as he accepted the pouches. Then he glanced at Bird-I’s sword, quietly stowed away in its scabbard.

Bird-I laughed, “no offense kid, but I doubt you could swing this sword, much less lift it,” the hero said as he petted his own sword. “Besides, it’s not like it’s the sword that matters.”

He reached inside one of the pouches he gave Izuku and pulled out five crystals. 

“Crystal Tears, literal crystallized tears from Z’Myra herself,” Bird-I explained, “It stays inert until you slap it on something metallic. Then that object is capable of repelling Consumed monstrosities for a limited time. Though in your case, you’d be better off using it as a last resort.”

He returned three of them.

“I’ll need these if I want to buy you enough time,” Bird-I continued as he pocketed 2 of the crystal.

Then a loud eldritch howl caught both of their attentions.    
  


“Yeah, that’s the signal for you to start marching a tune, kid,” Bird-I said as he pulled out his sword. “So much for getting in a power nap.”

“Um up to the mine and down to the city with a port?” Izuku repeated.

“Yeah, find a titled to do the rest and you can get out of dodge until this all blows over. Now get going!”

Izuku didn’t say anything.

“GO NOW!”

Izuku turned around and starting running in the direction the hero pointed.

  
  
  


Izuku stopped to catch his breath. 

His stomach was grumbling, his mouth was dry, and his lungs wanted out of his body. 

He was severely out of shape. 

As he caught his breath, he realized he was still holding on to the pouches. He quickly affixed them to his belt on his right side and quickly checked their contents.

That’s when Izuku noticed it, the rhythmic clashing of wind chimes and some eldritch noise. Bird-I was fighting.

After a quick sip of his canteen, Izuku resumed his trek up the mountain at a more steady pace. He found few traveled paths up the mountain, steep ones that made a bit more taxing to progress up, but Izuku kept at it. Often time, he found he had to use both his hands and arms to continue climbing.

As he did so, he couldn’t help but think of Bird-I and everything wrong with him. The costume and the ability, at least Izuku assumed it was Bird-I’s Hawk Vision, were on point. However, as far as he could remember, Bird-I never used a sword or anything to that effect, not to mention the hero stayed light on his feet, so he never carried anything like a bag or pouch on his person. 

Izuku stopped both his movement and pondering when he realized something.

He couldn’t hear Bird-I’s clashing with the monsters anymore…..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bird-I is the hero who tries to recruit Bakugo near the end of episode 2, season 1, of the series. I don't think they're name or quirk was ever introduced so I took advantage of it.


End file.
